Ancient Indo-China
The country which is today called Cambodia is only a small fraction of the vast Khmer Empire that controlled much of Indo-China from the ninth to the 13th century AD. At its heig...
Ancient Indo-China
The country which is today called Cambodia is only a small fraction of the vast Khmer Empire that controlled much of Indo-China from the ninth to the 13th century AD. At its height, the Khmer Empire consisted of today's Cambodia, Laos, most of southern Vietnam and Thailand, as well as some of the Malay peninsula. Culture
The word "Angkor" is derived Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language, of "Nagara" which means "City". Angkor Wat literally means "City of Temple" and Angkor Thom "The Magnificent City".
No doubts, the ancient Khmers were great masters of stone carving. As we can see today the unarguable evidences of various Angkor temples lying on the vast plain of Siemreap, or even beyond its present-day border to the Preah Vihear at Dangrek Mountain, Phnomrung and Phimai in Thailand and Wat Phu in Laos. All these were created and carefully crafts by the ancient Khmers in successive centuries. This seems to contradict with the normal and easy-going life of the local Khmer people and villagThe study of Khmer civilization in depth is not easy and pain-taking by the historians and archaeologists. Most of the writing, found after the excavation of Angkor, were carved in the stones which became the unperishable materials against time. Although these evidences are important for us to understand the basic constituency of Khmer society and its chronology, they were mainly concerned with religious rituals, King's praise, and literature of Indian epics of "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata". There were little things saying about the ordinary life of the local people.
Interestingly, we learn about the daily way of life of the ancient Khmers, not from the Khmer themselves, but from the Chinese annals. In the middle of 13th century during Chinese Yuan Dynasty, a Chinese ambassador named Zhou Daguan traveled to Angkor, stayed with the local villagers, and explored this empire for a year before his return. He wrote in his Chinese chronicle about this amazing empire, and explain vividly how the people lives with the clear portrayal of the Khmer society during those days. Interestingly, we learn about the daily way of life of the ancient Khmers, not from the Khmer themselves, but from the Chinese annals. In the middle of 13th century during Chinese Yuan Dynasty, a Chinese ambassador named Zhou Daguan traveled to Angkor, stayed with the local villagers, and explored this empire for a year before his return. He wrote in his Chinese chronicle about this amazing empire, and explain vividly how the people lives with the clear portrayal of the Khmer society during those days. RELIGION
Since the ancient time, the Khmers had accepted the two great religions from India, i.e. Hinduism and Buddhism, by which the former one was more popular. Hinduism had played an important role in Khmer civilization as the Angkor monarchs adopted its concept of deva-raja, or "god-king", by which the king was revered as an incarnation of the god Shiva, a supreme Hindu deity who was regarded as a protector. ANCIENT ART
The idealized faces the sculptors of ancient Cambodia so skilfully managed to draw forth from stone represent strikingly realistic portraits that capture the majesty and impassivity of gods, as well as the compassion of divinities imbued with a gentle inner smile.
In their bas-reliefs, these artists devoted their talent not only to depicting the deities, but to realistically reproducing the secular world as well: the temple gallery walls are lined with military processions, raging battles, or simple everyday scenes carved with an amazing sense of movement and composition.
-MORE www.AncientWeb.org/Cambodia
